The Wine Bottle

Anyone passionate about wine usually starts to collect it and as their wine collection grows they must begin looking for a place to store a wine collection.

A cupboard can readily be converted into a mini wine cellar to store a growing wine collection.

Before you begin building your mini wine closet consider the position of the closet in relation to the rest of the house or apartment.

Try not to convert a closet against an outside wall into your new wine cellar. The outside walls of your abode can be subject to wide fluctuations in temperature from season to season. Ideally, choose an internal closet where your wine will be able to be stored at a more constant temperature.

The degree and the speed of any change in temperature are critical elements in successfully storing and aging wine. A gradual change of a few degrees between from winter to summer won’t matter. A similar change each day will certainly cause harm to your wines by ageing them too quickly.

The most important rule when you are storing your wine is to avoid large temperature fluctuations. You’ll notice damage of this type immediately from the stickiness that will often form around the capsule. Over time, the continued expansion then contraction of the wine will damage the integrity of the cork. It’s just like having the cork removed and replaced every day. When this happens, very small quantities of wine may be pushed out along the edge of the cork allowing air to seep back in. Once the air is in contact with your wine the irreversible process of oxidation begins and your wine is ruined.

At 55º to 58ºF the wine will age gracefully, enabling it to fully develop as the winemaker intended. Higher temperatures age wine more rapidly and cooler temperatures slow the ageing process. The damage done to your wine will be irreversible if it is stored at temperatures over 82ºF even for a month.

Maybe the hardest part of building a wine cellar closet is finding other locations to store what is already in the closet!! Don’t hesitate … remove all the present contents (move them elsewhere / give away / auction them) and start out with an empty closet!

Wine racks can be purchased quite inexpensively from a hardware store, online retailer or storage shop and you’ll have a simple but very effective mini wine cellar.

Wine rack designs vary in the number of bottles they can carry; price variations have less to do with efficiency and more to do with aesthetics.

Individual racking makes bottle selection easy. If you place racks against only one wall of the closet there may still be floor or shelf space available for wines that you purchase by the case.

The best way to store a growing wine collection is to build a home wine cellar. Your cellar should be designed to correctly store wine as it ages, ensuring that the wine develops complexity and depth and does not spoil.

Building a home wine cellar from scratch may seem like a daunting process, but the first step that proverbially applies to climbing mountains applies to wine cellars, too. Of course, it all starts with collecting the first bottle and eventually finding that your collection has grown so large that you can no longer store it.

The cost of a well-constructed wine cellar can run to many thousands of dollars but so can a large capacity refrigerated wine cabinet, so you may find that building your own wine cellar can be the most economical and cost effective way of storing your wine.

Before you start building your home wine cellar consider the following.

The first cons should be temperature and the amount of natural light. Your wine room must be well insulated – extruded polystyrene provides ideal insulation. If you live in a mild climate you may be able to create a passive cellar that doesn’t require any cooling system.

A wine cellar is usually built with thick walls. Two-by-six construction allows for better insulation, allowing the cellar to remain at a constant temperature. In an active wine cellar, major factors such as temperature and humidity are maintained by a cooling system.

Temperature swings can destroy your wine collection. Small temperature fluctuations from season to season will not damage the wine but those same temperature fluctuations on a daily or even weekly basis will cause your wine to age prematurely. Temperature should always be between 45 and 60 degrees F, and avoid direct sunlight. It is possible to build a wine closet or a wine cupboard at home that will have the required humidity level of between 50% and 80% that is ideal for all types of wines.

When storing wine all vibration should be avoided; it agitates the bottles and speeds up the chemical reactions taking place inside the bottle – and not in a desirable way.

Vibration is a major issue during the transportation and is the reason winemakers recommend allowing your wine to rest after travel. This is also important whenever you buy wine from a winery or even from your local wine outlet. Never take it home and immediately pull the cork out without allowing it to return to a rested state. In fact, all wine should be immediately placed in your cellar.

Remember that it is not only your wine which is valuable; the wine cellar itself will add value to your home. So, the bigger and better your cellar, the more the value of your house goes up as well.

A wine cellar generally maintains a lower temperature compared to its surrounding living spaces and therefore must be treated differently in relation to those spaces. Do not attempt to cool a wine cellar by installing a domestic air conditioning unit if your wine cellar requires cooling. Home air conditioning removes the humidity from the air and will quickly destroy your wine collection by drying out the corks. Several popular brands of wine cellar cooling units are available that will cool any sized wine cellar. Your wine cellar makes a personal statement about you, and will become the most important area in your home. This is the place where you will indulge your passion for collecting fine wine and where you will display your precious acquisitions. Click here to discover how to build a home wine cellar and, if you have the space, you could try incorporating a bar or a wine tasting area.

When you are passionate about wine you start to collect it … and when you begin collecting it you need a place to store your wine collection.

A closet can readily be converted into a mini wine cellar to store a growing wine collection.

Before you begin converting your closet into a wine cellar consider the position of the closet relative to the rest of the house.

Try not to convert a closet against an outside wall into a wine cellar. From season to season the other walls of your home may be subject to wide temperature fluctuations. Ideally, choose an internal closet where your wine will be able to be stored at a more constant temperature.

The speed and degree of any temperature changes are critical in successfully storing and aging wine. A gradual change of a few degrees between from winter to summer won’t matter. A similar change each day will certainly cause harm to your wines by ageing them too quickly.

The most important rule when you are storing your wine is to avoid wide fluctuations in temperature. You’ll notice damage of this type immediately from the stickiness that will often form around the capsule. Over time the continual expansion and contraction of the wine will damage the integrity of the cork. It’s just like having the cork removed and replaced every day. When this happens, very small quantities of wine may be pushed out along the edge of the cork allowing air to seep back in. Once the air is in contact with your wine the irreversible process of oxidation begins and your wine is ruined.

At 55º to 58ºF the wine will age gracefully, enabling it to fully develop as the winemaker intended. Higher temperatures age wine more rapidly and cooler temperatures slow the ageing process. The damage done to your wine will be irreversible if it is stored at temperatures over 82ºF even for a month.

The most difficult part of creating a mini wine cellar in a closet can be finding other places to store the original contents of the closet! Don’t hesitate … remove all the present contents (move them elsewhere / give away / auction them) and start out with an empty closet!

Wine racks can be purchased quite inexpensively from a hardware store, online retailer or storage shop and you’ll have a simple but very effective mini wine cellar.

Wine rack designs vary in the number of bottles they can carry; price variations have less to do with efficiency and more to do with aesthetics.

Individual racks makes it easy to select bottles. If you place racks against only one wall of the closet you may still have floor or shelf space available for wines that you purchase by the case.